


Ends Well

by thealphagate_archivist



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-01
Updated: 2006-04-01
Packaged: 2019-02-02 17:57:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12731481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealphagate_archivist/pseuds/thealphagate_archivist
Summary: Daniel considers his past with Nick.





	Ends Well

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the archivists: this story was originally archived at [The Alpha Gate](https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Alpha_Gate), a Stargate SG-1 archive, which began migration to the AO3 in 2017 when its hosting software, eFiction, was no longer receiving support. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are this creator and it hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Alpha Gate collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/thealphagate).

A tiny, half hearted mewl woke Daniel in the darkness of the early morning. Glancing at the clock on the nightstand he peeled back the covers and slid out of bed. Padding silently across the carpet he moved more on automatic pilot than by sight to the small bassinet on the opposite side of the room. In the dim light he could see it shudder as the small body inside shifted and squirmed. A second cry less muffled by distance floated up to him as he leaned over the miniature bed. Gently pulling back the blanket he carefully slid long fingers under the tiny infant's body and lifted it from the cradle. 

"Come on, little guy." Daniel whispered nestling the baby in the crook of his arm and casting a glance back to the bed where Janet still lay sleeping before slipping out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

With a yawn he made his way through the dark and quiet house to the kitchen to begin a ritual that was rapidly becoming second nature.

"OK, buddy, close your eyes." He warned before turning on the florescent lights, squinting and blinking at the sudden illumination. The baby squirmed in his arms instinctively turning its tiny face away from the light.

It had been a little over three weeks since his son had been born, the notion that he was a father still not quite settled in him. Some moments the idea made him nearly giddy. Some it scared him half to death. That particular morning as he pulled a pre measured bottle of Janet's milk from the refrigerator and stuck it in the microwave he was a touch too distracted by other things to be intimidated by the notion of fatherhood. One thing, actually.

Daniel didn't need a calendar to be reminded that it had been exactly two years since Nick had decided to live out his life in the company of aliens. Two years since the day he had regained and lost his grandfather all in the space of twelve hours. He still thought about him almost daily, wondering what he was doing, what he was learning, if the idea of coming home had crossed his mind. Most of all, if he was safe. 

The baby squirmed in Daniel's arms, small face screwed into a grimace, mouth open, ready to release a wail of protest that his stomach was still empty when suddenly an incredibly tiny fist found its way into his mouth becoming an instant pacifier. Daniel smiled down at him passing a hand gently over the top of his head, smoothing the fine, light hair he could feel more than see. Deep blue eyes met his, holding his gaze for a moment before moving on to other things, eventually settling on the lights overhead. 

The microwave chimed quietly and Daniel retrieved the bottle, shaking it to distribute the heat as he headed for the easy chair in the living room, kitchen towel tossed over his shoulder. As he settled in and moved the baby's hand aside long enough to replace it with the bottle Daniel's thoughts immediately returned to Nick.

Over the years Nicholas Ballard had been both a hero and a disappointment to Daniel, sometimes simultaneously. Once upon a time Daniel had dreamed of traveling the world with him, the two of them setting off into the sunset leaving his destroyed childhood behind. It had lulled him to sleep those first few nights when the thought of life among strangers had scared him sick. Foster care was only temporary, he had insisted to himself. Nick was going to take him away from all the confusion and pain and make everything better. Only he hadn't. 

Daniel could still remember, though most of the time he tried not to, the diner Nick had taken him to after his parents' funeral. He remembered sitting on the vinyl seat of the booth staring across the table at his grandfather, a pile of waffles drowning in syrup forgotten on the plate in front of him. Through the smoky haze a waitress with a pencil tucked behind her ear and a wad of gum in her mouth had appeared to ask if his untouched waffles were alright. He had nodded numbly, the plate remaining undisturbed until Nick had finally given up the pretense of a friendly post-funeral brunch and taken him back to his foster home. There in a room that had smelled of cigarettes and maple syrup Nick had shattered Daniel's dream. He was too old to take care of a young boy he had said. His work had him traveling too much and being shuffled from place to place, living out of a suitcase was no life for a child. 

For a long time Daniel had been angry with him, coming as close to hating him as he ever had anyone, the old man's excuse sounding weak and pathetic in the face of what Daniel's reality had become. If being shuffled from place to place, living out of a suitcase wasn't a proper life for a child then someone needed to explain foster care. In his young mind he had reasoned that it wasn't really the lack of stability keeping Nick from adopting him, it was the simple fact that his grandfather didn't want him. Nick just didn't have the nerve to come right out and say it.

As time went by occasionally a post card from some far off place would find Daniel in the mail, Nick's thoughtfulness only fueling the fire. He could remember glaring at one of them through tear filled eyes until his head ached. He had wanted to tear it in pieces and flush it down the toilet. The fact that he couldn't bring himself to do it had made him even angrier. He had truly wanted to hate Nick back in those days with all the intensity of his young heart, but he couldn't. Nick was all he had left. If he lost his grandfather he would have nothing. 

It wasn't until a boy in one of his foster homes had seen one of the postcards and asked about it that Daniel had realized maybe Nick could be useful after all. He had spun an elaborate tale about his grandfather the explorer. A man living in darkest Africa who traveled the world collecting all kinds of exotic animals for his zoo, a zoo unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. Once the collection was complete he would send for Daniel and they would run it together. The postcards made the story more credible than it otherwise would have been and for a while he actually looked forward to them. Looking back on it now he supposed he had begun to make his peace with Nick at that point.

Daniel paused in his thoughts to watch the baby in his arms, tiny hands tucked to his chest, diapers rustling softly under his yellow sleeper as his legs moved. Deep blue eyes that had already begun to darken into brown like his mother's stared up at him as if studying him while eagerly sucking down his early morning breakfast and for a moment Daniel wondered if his own father had held him that way when he was little. Shoving his thoughts in a less heart wrenching direction, he returned them to Nick.

Before long Daniel had been too old for stories of world travelers and zoos and Nick had been buried under the complications of real life, a persistent ache deep inside. For years he had stayed there, never mentioned, never dreamed about, only floating to the surface long enough for Daniel to tuck another postcard away in the corner of whatever dresser drawer he had happened to be using at the time. Closing the small pieces of stiff paper in the darkness the same way his thoughts of the man who had sent them were. 

It wasn't until college when foster care was in the past and rapidly fading from his mind that Nick had surfaced again, this time in a lower level Archaeology class. A picture of a crystal skull had appeared on the screen at the front of the room and Daniel's mind had ground to a halt at the professor's announcement of the name of the man who had discovered it. 

He and Nick had lost track of each other when he'd left the State's custody at the age of 16 after having been accepted to college and declared by Child Services to be an adult a few years early. Once he was no longer their responsibility they saw no reason to keep tabs on him making it impossible for Nick to do so either and as a result the cards had stopped coming. Daniel could remember the odd sense of freedom it had given him being completely out of everyone's control. The State couldn't tell him where to live any more and Nick could only find him if Daniel chose to reveal his location. He was free, but at the same time almost completely lost. 

For days after that class Nick's name had rattled around in his head and suddenly he had realized he had no idea what his grandfather had really been up to all those years. Obviously the fantasy he'd created as a child about the zoo had been just that...fantasy, but Nick had to have had a life of some kind. It was then Daniel had taken to the library to unearth his grandfather, the real Nicholas Ballard. Not the disappointment, the explorer, or even the old man Daniel had imagined sitting alone in his room wondering at the existence of his now grown grandchild. 

Obscure mention in a couple of books had led him to a few old articles, then to a few more recently published papers before finally pointing to the mental institution in Oregon. 

Daniel smiled to himself as he sat in the living room remembering how the sudden realization that his grandfather was a nutcase had hit him so hard it had nearly knocked him out of his chair. All that time he had thought of Nick as cold and pompous. All those years of seeing him as a tough as nails explorer who needed no one. Obviously it hadn't been the truth. 

He would like to have been able to say their reunion at the mental hospital and the relationship that had developed afterward had brought a fairytale ending to the decades long story. It hadn't. They'd argued that first day and every visit after that until finally Daniel had thrown up his hands in frustration and stormed out. He'd had a life in Chicago back then. A budding career as an Archaeologist. He hadn't wanted the annoyance and after discovering Nick's reputation as a crackpot in that particular field he wasn't sure he wanted the connection. Over the years he had managed to make peace with Nick's decision to leave him behind years earlier, but he hadn't made peace with the man himself until that day in the cavern surrounded by oversized alien apparitions. Many times since that day two years ago he had wondered what Nick was doing. Wondered at the man who had refused to deny what he had seen in Belize so many years ago despite what it had cost him. Wondered at the younger man he himself had been, the one who couldn't seem to get past the anger long enough to see that for all those years the indestructible Nicholas Ballard had been hurting from the loss of his family just like he had. If nothing else they had always had that in common. Daniel had just never seen it.

Looking down at his son tucked safely against his chest, eyes sliding closed, bottle nearly drained he wished Nick were around to meet his only great-grandchild. To see that despite everything that had happened to them and between them things had worked out in the end. Nick had finally found the thing he'd been searching for all his life. So had Daniel. Janet had given it to him three weeks ago when Braden Nicholas had been born. He had a family again. Daniel stood up from the chair and rested the groggy infant on his towel covered shoulder, gently patting his tiny back. All's well that ends well or so the saying went. In all honesty he wouldn't have wanted to live any of it again for any amount of money, but seeing where the road had led him Daniel had to admit he wouldn't have traded it for the world.


End file.
